Honeybee_ Lessons from an Accidental Beekeeper - C. Marina Marchese [88]
Glossary
ANTHER: The pollen-bearing part of the stamen, or male reproductive organ, of a flower.
APIARIST: A beekeeper.
APIOLOGY: The scientific study of honeybees.
APIARY: A yard or field where beehives are kept. Also called a bee yard.
ARTISANAL HONEY: Honey produced by individuals using traditional methods and thus preserving the integrity of the product. With artisanal honey, quality and character are highlighted, rather than quantity and consistency.
BEEHIVE: The man-made boxes where honeybees are raised. In nature, it can be any place where honeybees live.
BEE SPACE: The space needed for honeybees to move between frames within a hive. This space has been determined as being 3/8 inch.
BEESWAX: The wax that is secreted from the glands of the female honeybee’s abdomen and then molded to make honeycomb.
BROOD: The immature stages of a honeybee’s life: eggs, larvae, pupae.
COLONY: The social structure of honeybees. The colony includes workers, drones, and one queen.
COMB HONEY: Honey taken out of the beehive in its original state still inside the beeswax.
DRONE: The male member of the honeybee colony. Drones comprise roughly 10 percent of a colony’s total population.
EXTRACTED HONEY: Liquid honey that has been separated from the beeswax by an extractor or spinner and then usually poured into jars.
EXTRACTOR: A large barrel-like machine that separates honey from the frames through centrifugal force. Extractors can be electric or manual. Also known as a spinner.
HONEYCOMB: Beeswax shaped into hexagonal cells made by honeybees and used for raising brood and storing honey and pollen.
LARVA: The newly hatched wingless form of the honeybee. The second stage of brood development.
MEAD: A fermented beverage made with honey.
MELISSOPALYNOLOGY: The study of honey by identifying its pollen sources.
NECTAR: A sweet liquid secreted by flowers, which is gathered by honeybees and made into honey.
POLLEN: A protein-rich, powder-like substance produced by the anther of plants and containing the male reproductive cells. Honeybees gather pollen as food for themselves and their young.
POLLINATION: The transfer of pollen from the anther to the stigma, often by the wind or insects, especially honeybees; the necessary step before fertilization of a flowering plant.
PROPOLIS: A sticky, waxy resin collected by honeybees from the buds of trees. Used by honeybees to close up openings within a hive that are less than approximately K inch wide (the width of bee space).
PUPA: The non-feeding stage in the birth cycle of the honeybee, during which the larva develops into an adult. The last stage of brood development.
STIGMA: This tip of the pistil, or female reproductive organ, of a flower on which pollen is deposited during pollination.
SWARM: A group of approximately half of a colony of honeybees that, along with the queen, has left the hive to establish a new colony.
QUEEN: The only sexually developed female in a colony of honeybees. She is the mother of all the bees in the hive. A healthy hive can have only one queen.
VARIETAL HONEY: Honey that has at least fifty-one percent of its nectar from one floral source. Also called uni-floral or single varietal honey.
WORKER: Sexually undeveloped female bee that performs all the chores within a hive except laying eggs (during normal circumstances).
Bibliography
Books
Beck, M.D., Bodog F. and Dorée Smedley. Honey and Your Health. New York: Bantam
Books, 1971 Boardman M.D, Joseph. Bee Venom: The Natural Curative for Arthritis and Rheumatism. G.P. Putnam and Sons, 1962
Brown, Royden. Bee Hive Product Bible. New York: Avery Publishing Group, 1993
Caron, Dewey M. Honey Bee Biology and Beekeeping. Connecticut: Wicwas Press, 1999
Crane, Eva. A Book of Honey. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1980
Crane, Eva; Penelope Walker and Rosemary Day. Directory of Important World Honey Sources. Great Britain: International Bee Research Association, 1984
Crane, Eva,